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FROM   THE  LIBRARY  OF 
REV.   LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON,  D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED   BY   HIM   TO 

THE   LIBRARY  OF 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


Religious  ill 


TWO    DISCOURSES 


THE  FIRST  BY 


HORACE    BUSHNELL. 


THE  SECOND  BY 


1/ 

THOMAS    M.    CLARK. 


PUBLISHED    BY    REQUEST. 


HARTFORD: 

F.  A.  BEOWX,  PUBLISHER. 
1852. 


m 

I       >  m 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1852,  by 
F.  A.   BROWN, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  Connecticut. 


PRESS    OF 

CASE,    TIFFANY    fc    CO. 

HARTFORD,    CONN. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


The  authors  of  the  two  following  discourses  on  religious 
music,  having  been  requested  to  allow  their  publication 
together,  have  the  more  readily  consented,  that  the  dis- 
courses are  found  to  have  so  little  in  common  one  with  the 
other,  and  because  they  are  alike  willing  to  make  any 
contribution,  in  their  power,  to  the  advancement  of  an  art 
that  is  the  common  interest  of  all  Christian  assemblies. 

The  first  discourse  was  originally  delivered  in  the  North 
Church,  Hartford,  at  the  opening  of  a  new  organ,  erected 
by  the  Messrs.  Hook  of  Boston ;  and  afterwards,  with 
some  variations,  before  the  Beethoven  Society  of  Yale 
College,  at  their  twenty-fifth  anniversary.  It  is  published 
as  last  delivered. 

The  second  discourse  was  delivered  in  Christ  Church, 
Hartford,  on  the  evening  of  Trinity  Sunday,  1852,  and  is 
now  published  with  some  additions,  which  were  not  spoken 
from  the  pulpit. 


I.    DISCOUR  SE. 


A  quarter  of  a  century  since,  in  the  year  1826, 
at  which  time  I  was  a  member  of  this  venerable 
university,  the  Beethoven  Society  was  organized, 
having  for  its  object  the  cultivation  of  music  as  an 
art,  but  more  especially  of  sacred  music.  It  was 
designed  to  be  perpetual,  though  I  am  obliged  to 
acknowledge  that  we  had,  at  the  time,  but  a  slender 
faith  in  its  perpetuity.  Still  it  has  continued  for  so 
long  a  time  maintaining,  I  believe,  a  general  advance 
in  the  noble  art  it  was  designed  to  foster,  till  now, 
at  last,  having  become  able  to  furnish  a  better 
pledge  of  its  continuance,  in  the  erection  of  a  fine, 
classic-toned  organ  from  one  of  the  best  builders  in 
the  world,  it  has  seemed  fit  that  the  occasion  of  its 
opening  should  be  signalized  in  some  public  man- 
ner. In  this  view,  and  I  suppose  principally  be- 
cause I  was  connected  with  the  society  in  its  ori- 
gin— certainly  not  because  I  have  any  special  com- 
petence for  the  task — I  have  been  requested  to  offer 


6  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

a  discourse  such  as  I  may  deem  appropriate  to  the 
occasion.  Accepting  your  invitation,  I  derive  my 
subject  from — 

1  Cor.  14:  7.  And  EVEN  THINGS  without  LIFE  GIVING 
SOUND,  WHETHER  PIPE  OK  HARP,  EXCEPT  THEY  GIVE  A  DIS- 
TINCTION IN  THE  BOUNDS,  HOW  SHALL  IT  liE  KNOWN  WHAT  IS 
PIPED  OR  HARPED  ? 

Every  thing  for  a  use  and  every  thing  in  its  place, 
is  a  rule,  the  apostle  is  saying,  that  holds  in  spirit- 
ual gifts  and  exercises,  as  in  every  thing  else.  If 
you  speak  with  tongues,  let  it  not  be  as  making 
only  strange  noises,  but  let  some  one  interpret,  that 
the  tongues  may  edify  and  not  be  sounds  without 
a  meaning.  It  will  not  do  for  Christians  to  be 
more  unmeaning  and  idle  in  spiritual  gifts,  than 
even  things  without  life  themselves,  the  pipes  and 
•harps  and  trumpets  and  drums  of  music  ;  for  these, 
when  they  give  a  sound,  give  it  with  distinctions 
that  have  a  meaning  and  a  power,  else  they  are 
nought  to  us.  The  war  trumpet  has  so  great  sig- 
nificance and  authority  that,  by  the  sounding  of  sig- 
nals, it  commands  the  squadrons  of  armies,  right 
and  left,  front  and  rear,  to  advance  or  to  retreat ; 
but  if  the  trumpet  gives  an  uncertain  sound  or  a 
false  signal,  if  instead  of  sounding  the  charge  it 
sounds  the  giving  of  alms,  who  shall  prepare  him- 
self for  battle?  Trumpets  are  not  used  in  this  way. 
Are  voices  and  tongues  to  be  less  intelligent  or  sig- 
nificant than  tubes  of  unconscious  horn  or  metal  ? 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  7 

This  reference  of  the  apostle  to  instruments  of 
music,  you  perceive,  is  a  reference  simply  of  illus- 
tration ;  he  is  discoursing  of  spiritual  gifts,  not  of 
music.  But  he  touches,  in  the  way  of  illustration, 
two  points  of  so  great  religious  interest,  that  I  pro- 
pose, this  evening,  to  make  them  topics  of  my  dis- 
course. They  are  these,  viz  :  the  very  wonderful 
fact  that  God  has  hidden  powers  of  music  in  things 
without  life  ;  and  that  when  they  are  used,  in  right 
distinctions,  or  proprieties  of  sound,  they  discourse 
what  ire  know,  what  meets,  interprets  and  works 
our  feeling,  as  living  and  spiritual  creatures.  Of 
these  I  shall  speak  in  their  order,  only  endeavoring 
to  confine  the  subject,  in  great  part,  to  its  religious 
import  and  applications. 

This  world  of  outward  being  has  a  fixed  relation 
to  all  the  five  senses  of  man  and  especially  to  the 
two  nobler  of  these,  the  senses  of  sight  and  of 
sound;  the  senses  of  touch,  taste  and  smell  being 
applicable  only  to  small  portions  of  the  material 
world  and  having  as  much  less  to  do  with  the  spir- 
itual economy  of  life,  as  an  intellectual  and  relig- 
ious experience. 

The  senses  of  sight  and  sound  are  preeminently 
conversable  or  social,  therefore  moral  and  religious 
in  their  connections.  And  then  of  these  two,  the 
sense  of  sight  is  more  especially  connected  with  the 
understanding  or  intellectual  power,  and  the  sense 
of  sound  with  the  feelings,  emotions  and  affections. 


8 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 


God  has  made  the  world  to  be  a  fit  medium  for 
both — to  use  the  dryest  figure  possible,  a  black- 
board for  the  mind  and  a  sounding  board  for  the 
heart.  In  this  manner,  it  results  that  we  have  two 
languages,  the  language  of  thought  and  reason 
formed  in  words,  which  are  the  names  principally 
of  visible  objects;  and  the  language  of  feeling, 
which  is  made  by  tones  of  sound  different  in  time, 
pitch,  quality,  inflection — in  a  word  by  music  : 
which,  for  a  longtime,  was  not  a  written  language, 
but  is  now  more  exactly  written  than  the  other. 
In  speech,  or  vocal  utterance,  both  languages  are 
blended ;  words,  which  are  mostly  based  in  visible 
objects,  and  spatial  relationships,  being,  when  spo- 
ken, gifted  with  additional  meanings  and  powers 
from  the  qualities  and  inflections  of  the  voice,  in- 
stinctively toned  or  modulated  by  the  feeling  of 
those  who  speak ;  for  it  is  not  the  words  only  of  speech 
that  have  so  great  power,  but  quite  as  much  the  liv- 
ing notes  of  music  in  which  they  are  spoken  ;  notes 
that  vary  with  the  quantity  and  quality — the  vol- 
ume and  depth  and  beauty,  or  the  dearth,  dullness, 
hollowness,  coarseness  of  feeling  in  the  speaker. 
Hence  too  the  amazing  difference  of  power  in  speak- 
ers, who  may  speak,  or  read,  or  recite  the  same 
words.  One  does  it  without  the  true  distinction  of 
sounds,  the  other  with  :  even  as  our  apostle  himself 
observes,  apart  from  any  thought  of  becoming  a 
critic  or  professor  of  elocution  :    There  are,  it  may 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  V 

be,  so  many  kinds  of  voices  in  the  world  and  none 
of  them  is  without  signification. 

Hence  also  the  very  great  difference  you  observe 
between  the  tones  of  utterance  employed  in  a  mere 
argument  to  the  understanding  or  judgment  of  men, 
and  those  which  are  used,  for  example,  in  prayer 
addressed  to  God.  We  think  nothing  of  it  proba- 
bly, but  nature  teaches  us  to  make  a  distinction  of 
sounds  unawares.  Meantime  the  musician  who  is 
able  to  catch  and  write  down  the  tones  we  use  in 
both  cases,  will  show  that  we  speak,  in  the  former 
case,  more  in  full-tone  intervals,  and  these  coarsely 
measured ;  in  the  latter  more  in  half  tones,  and 
closer  to  the  principle  of  musical  notation.  Just  as 
we  properly  should,  because  we  are  not  dealing 
here  with  mere  notions  of  the  understanding,  but 
offering  to  God  sentiments  of  penitence  and  love 
and  worship.  And  yet,  since  preaching  is  so 
much  a  matter  of  address  to  the  feelings  or  senti- 
ments of  our  religious  nature,  this  kind  of  speak- 
ing will  have  a  distinction  of  sound,  compared  with 
other  forms  of  public  address  in  the  senate,  or  at  the 
bar.  And  so  far  has  this  distinction  prevailed  in 
the  Christian  sense  of  some  nations,  as  in  Italy, 
and  particularly  in  Wales,  that  preaching  takes  the 
form  of  a  distinct,  musical  recitative.  And  on  this 
account,  it  is  said,  that  there  is  no  tongue  in  the 
wrorld,  in  which  preaching  has  so  great  advantages, 
or  exercises  a  power  so  resistless,  as  in  the  Welch ; 
because  it  speaks  in  the  music  of  love  and  sorrow. 


10 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 


and  fitly  interprets,  in  that   manner,  the  divine  pas- 
sion of  the  cross. 

You  perceive,  in  these  suggestions,  how  closely 
our  spiritual  nature,  as  creatures  of  feeling,  is  rela- 
ted to  the  element  of  sound,  wanting  this  in  its  dis- 
tinctions for  a  language,  as  truly  as  it  wants  the 
language  of  words  for  intellectual  discourse.  Even 
as  the  poets,  who  are  nature's  best  oracles,  sing : 

Music  !  O  how  taint,  how  weak. 
Language  fades  before  thy  spell ; 

Why  should  feeling  ever  speak. 

When  thou  eanst  breathe  her  soul  so  well  ? 

Accordingly,  as  we  are  wont  to  argue  the  invisi- 
ble things  of  God,  even  his  eternal  power  and  God- 
head, from  the  things  that  are  seen,  finding  them 
all  images  of  thought  and  vehicles  of  intelligence, 
so  we  have  an  argument  for  God  more  impressive, 
in  one  view,  because  the  matter  of  it  is  so  deep  and 
mysterious,  from  the  fact  that  a  grand,  harmonic, 
soul-interpreting  law  of  music,  pervades  all  the  ob- 
jects of  the  material  creation,  and  that  things  with- 
out life,  all  metals  and  woods  and  valleys  and 
mountains  and  waters,  are  tempered  with  distinc- 
tions of  sound,  and  toned  to  be  a  language  to  the 
feeling  of  the  heart.  It  is  as  if  God  had  made  the 
world  about  us  to  be  a  grand  organ  of  music,  so 
that  our  feelings  might  have  play  in  it,  as  our  un- 
derstanding has  in  the  light  of  the  sun  and  the  out- 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  11 

ward  colors  and  forms  of  things.  What  is  called 
the  musical  scale,  or  octave,  is  fixed  in  the  original 
appointments  of  sound,  just  as  absolutely  and  defi- 
nitely as  the  colors  of  the  rainbow  or  prism  in  the 
optical  properties  and  laws  of  light.  And  the  visi- 
ble objects  of  the  world  are  not  more  certainly 
shaped  and  colored  to  us,  under  the  exact  laws  of 
light  and  the  prism,  than  they  are  tempered  and 
toned,  as  objects  audible,  to  give  distinctions  of 
sound  by  their  vibrations,  in  the  terms  of  the  mu- 
sical octave.  It  is  not  simply  that  we  hear  the  sea 
roar  and  the  floods  clap  their  hands  in  anthems  of 
joy;  it  is  not  that  we  hear  the  low  winds  sigh,  or 
the  storms  howl  dolefully,  or  the  ripples  break 
peacefully  on  the  shore,  or  the  waters  dripping 
sadly  from  the  rock,  or  the  thunders  crashing  in 
horrible  majesty  through  the  pavements  of  heaven  ; 
not  only  do  all  the  natural  sounds  we  hear  come  to 
us  in  tones  of  music  as  interpreters  of  feeling,  but 
there  is  hid  in  the  secret  temper  and  substance  of 
.  all  matter  a  silent  music,  that  only  waits  to  sound, 
and  become  a  voice  of  utterance  to  the  otherwise 
unutterable  feeling  of  our  heart — a  voice,  if  we  will 
have  it,  of  love  and  worship  to  the  God  of  all. 

First  there  is  a  musical  scale  in  the  laws  of  the 
air  itself,  exactly  answering  to  the  musical  sense  or 
law  of  the  soul.  Next  there  is,  in  all  substances,  a 
temperament  of  quality  related  to  both  ;  so  that 
whatever  kind  of  feeling  there  may  be  in  a  soul, 
war   and    defiance,  festivity  and  joy,   sad  remem- 


12  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

brance, remorse,  pity,  penitence,  self-denial,  love,  ado- 
ration, may  find  some  fit  medium  of  sound  in  which 
to  express  itself.  And.  what  is  not  less  remarka- 
ble, connected  with  all  these  forms  of  substan- 
ces, there  are  mathematical  laws  of  length  and 
breadth,  or  definite,  proportions  of  each,  and  reflect- 
ive angles,  that  are  every  way  as  exact  as  those 
which  regulate  the  colors  of  the  prism,  the  images 
of  the  mirror,  or  the  telescopic  light  of  astronomic 
worlds — mathematics  for  the  heart  as  truly  as  for 
the  head. 

Accordingly  we  find,  so  close  is  the  hidden  music 
of  substances  to  the  sympathy  and  feeling  of  man, 
that  he  begins,  at  once,  instinctively,  to  try  them  by 
his  voice  and  feeling,  and  learn  what  distinctions 
of  sound  they  will  make.  And  so  instruments  of 
music  begin  to  be  invented  and  used,  even  before 
the  flood ;  as  early  indeed  as  the  keeping  of  herds 
and  cattle  and  the  comforts  of  the  nomadic  life  are 
introduced.  Jabal  is  the  "  father"  of  these,  his  brother 
Jubal  of  the  other ;  that  is,  "  of  the  harp  and  the 
organ  ;"  one  a  stringed  instrument,  and  the  other, 
not  an  organ  in  our  modern  sense  of  the  term,  but 
a  pandean  or  shepherd's  pipe,  the  principle  of  which 
is  the  same.  From  that  time  to  the  present  the 
silent  music  or  musical  property  of  things  without 
life,  has  been  more  and  more  fully  opened  to  dis- 
covery, till  at  last  we  find  that  every  known  sub- 
stance, wood,  shell,  horn,  glass,  copper,  iron,  steel, 
brills,    silver,     strings    and    skins   and    pasteboard 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  13 

and  even  India  rubber,  wait  to  be  voices  of  feeling 
and  sing  the  passions  of  the  human  spirit.  Nay, 
even  the  very  stones  of  the  field  have  their  notes, 
hid  within  them,  and  are  ready  to  break  out  in  song. 
For  we  hear  that  the  stroke  of  flints  upon  each 
other  has  been  actually  managed  so  as  to  make  an 
instrument  of  music  and  discourse  in  strains  of  liv- 
ing melody — suggesting  the  probable  fact  that  the 
mysterious  laws  of  crystallization  have  a  secret 
affiance  with  the  powers  of  music,  and  so  with  the 
passions  of  the  human  heart. 

There's  music  in  the  sighing  of  a  reed, 
There's  music  in  the  gushing  of  a  rill, 
There's  music  in  all  things,  if  men  had  ears, 
Their  earth  is  but  an  echo  of  the  spheres. 

Neither  can  it  be  said  that  all  these  substances 
without  life  have  simply  a  power  to  make  sounds 
or  aerial  vibrations,  taking  advantage  of  which 
fact  we  ourselves  arrange  them  so  as  to  make 
sounds  of  a  given  pitch,  and  that  so  the  music  they 
yield  is  really  of  man  alone.  For  though  it  be  true 
that  a  given  shape  and  arrangement  is  necessary  to 
the  effect,  the  laws  of  that  arrangement  and  of  mu- 
sical rhythm  are  first  established^in  souls  and  in  the 
air  as  related  to  souls,  and  then,  besides,  all  these 
substances  without  life  are  so  constructed  as  to 
make  distinctions  of  sound  as  to  quality,  wholly 
apart  from  distinctions  of  pitch,  and  it  is  the  mys- 
terious quality  of  sounds  that  makes  them  interpre- 
2 


14  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

ters  of  human  feeling,  quite  as  much  as  their  varie- 
ties of  pitch.  Hence  it  is  found,  that  in  instru- 
ments of  wood,  the  different  woods  have  all  distinct 
qualities  of  sound,  and  that  in  some  of  them  only  a 
given  kind  of  wood,  carefully  selected,  will  produce 
the  quality  of  sound  most  desired  in  that  particular 
instrument.  Thus,  down  to  the  time  of  David,  the 
harp  had  been  made  of  the  berosh,  or  cedar  wood. 
But  in  Solomon's  time,  it  was  found  that  the  aiming 
or  algum  wood  gave  a  better  quality  of  sound,  and 
all  the  harps  of  the  choir  were  accordingly  made  of 
it.  So  it  is  affirmed  that  the  Cremona  viol  has  its 
rank  of  estimation,  as  a  precious  instrument,  from 
the  singular  and  musically  soul-like  quality  of  the 
wood  selected  for  its  construction.  It  is  also  found 
that  the  different  woods,  in  friction  upon  each  other, 
scream  in  distinct  qualities  of  sound,  and  a  key- 
board instrument  has  been  constructed  on  this  prin- 
ciple of  friction,  that  discourses  in  the  woods,  by 
vibrations  that  answer  to  the  sentiments  of  souls. 
Even  as  that  most  wonderful  organ,  the  human 
throat,  is  gifted  with  a  power  to  utter  all  the  feeling 
of  a  soul,  by  distinctions  of  sound,  so  there  is  a 
throat  of  utterance  in  all  created  substance  voiced 
to  serve  its  uses,  tfnd  prepared  by  some  mysterious 
quality  of  sound,  to  be  its  interpreter. 

It  cannot  therefore  be  said  that  music  is  a  human 
creation  and,  as  far  as  the  substances  of  the  world 
are  concerned,  a  mere  accident.  As  well  can  it  be 
said  that  man  creates  the  colors  of  the  prism,  and 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  15 

that  they  are  not  in  the  properties  of  the  light,  be- 
cause he  shapes  the  prism  by  his  own  mechanical 
art.  Or  if  still  we  doubt,  if  it  seems  incredible  that 
the  soul  of  music  is  in  the  heart  of  all  created  being, 
then  the  laws  of  harmony  themselves  shall  answer, 
one  string  vibrating  to  another,  when  it  is  not  struck 
itself,  and  uttering  its  voice  of  concord  simply  be- 
cause the  concord  is  in  it  and  it  feels  the  pulses  on 
the  air  to  which  it  cannot  be  silent.  Nay  the  solid 
mountains  and  their  giant  masses  of  rock  shall  an- 
swer ;  catching,  as  they  will,  the  bray  of  horns,  or 
the  stunning  blast  of  cannon,  rolling  it  across  from 
one  top  to  another  in  reverberating  pulses,  till  it  falls 
into  bars  of  musical  rhythm  and  chimes  and  caden-* 
ces  of  silver  melody.  I  have  heard  some  fine  mu- 
sic, as  men  are  wont  to  speak,  the  play  of  orches- 
tras, the  anthems  of  choirs,  the  voices  of  song  that 
moved  admiring  nations.  But  in  the  lofty  passes 
of  the  Alps,  I  heard  a  music  overhead  from  God's 
cloudy  orchestra,  the  giant  peaks  of  rock  and  ice, 
curtained  in  by  the  driving  mist  and  only  dimly 
visible,  athwart  the  sky,  through  its  folds,  such  as 
mocks  all  sounds  our  lower  worlds  of  art  can  ever 
hope  to  raise.  I  stood  (excuse  the  simplicity)  call- 
ing to  them,  in  the  loudest  shouts  I  could  raise,  even 
till  my  power  was  spent,  and  listening  in  compul- 
sory trance  to  their  reply.  I  heard  them  roll  it  up 
through  their  cloudy  worlds  of  snow,  sifting  out  the 
harsh  qualities  that  were  tearing  in  it  as  demon 
screams  of  sin,  holding  on  upon  it  as  if  it  were  a 


16  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

hymn  they  were  fining  to  the  ear  of  the  great  Crea- 
tor, and  sending  it  round  and  round  in  long  redu- 
plications of  sweetness,  minute  after  minute,  till 
finally  receding  and  rising,  it  trembled,  as  it  were? 
among  the  quick  gratulations  of  angels,  and  fell 
into  the  silence  of  the  pure  empyrean.  I  had  never 
any  conception  before  of  what  is  meant  by  quality 
in  sound.  There  was  more  power  upon  the  soul, 
in  one  of  those  simple  notes,  than  I  ever  expect  to 
feel  from  any  thing  called  music  below,  or  ever  can 
feel  till  I  hear  them  again  in  the  choirs  of  the  an- 
gelic world.  I  had  never  such  a  sense  of  purity,  or 
of  what  a  simple  sound  may  tell  of  purity,  by  its 
own  pure  quality ;  and  I  could  not  but  say,  O  my 
God  teach  me  this!  Be  this  in  me  forever!  And  I 
can  truly  affirm  that  the  experience  of  that  hour  has 
consciously  made  me  better  able  to  think  of  God 
ever  since — better  able  to  worship.  All  other  sounds 
are  gone,  the  sounds  of  yesterday  heard  in  the  si- 
lence of  enchanted  multitudes  are  gone  ;  but  that  is 
with  me  still  and  I  hope  will  never  cease  to  ring  in 
my  spirit,  till  I  go  down  to  the  slumber  of  silence 
itself. 

What  I  here  say  may  probably  enough  seem  ex- 
travagant. That  such  a  power  of  music  dwells  in 
the  ragged  rocks  and  granite  masses  of  the  world 
may  be  inconceivable.  And  yet  if  this  visible  crea- 
tion of  matter  is  made  for  the  habitation  of  souls, 
made  for  human  hearts  as  well  as  for  human  under- 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  17 

standings,  why  should  not  the  language  of  the  heart 
and  the  rhythm  of  the  heart's  feeling  be  in  it. 

I  am  a  little  apprehensive  that  in  these  illustra- 
tions I  may  have  seemed  to  some  of  you  to  be  so 
much  occupied  with  properties  of  matter,  as  to  be 
leaving  the  domain  of  religion.  To  such  as  think 
it  nothing  to  religion  that  God  has  made  the  world 
for  it  and  hid  a  language  in  all  fibres,  grains  and 
masses  of  substance  discoursing  of  love  and  pure 
feeling  and  adoring  joy,  it  doubtless  will.  But  to 
me  there  is  nothing  in  any  of  the  arguments  for 
God  from  things  visible,  that  seems  to  prove  as 
much  or  have  as  deep  a  meaning  as  this  from  things 
audible.  It  transforms  the  world  itself  into  a  tem- 
ple of  worship  and  fills  it  with  voices  waiting  to 
utter  and  kindle  a  celestial  love  in  all  that  live. 

This  conviction,  I  think,  will  be  strengthened  as 
we  go  on  to  speak  of  the  second  topic  proposed, 
viz  :  of  those  distinctions  or  proprieties  of  sound  by 
which  it  may  be  made  to  serve  most  effectively  the 
purpose  of  God  in  its  appointment  as  an  instrument 
of  religion.  I  say  the  purpose  of  God  in  its  ap- 
pointment, for  we  have  it  by  a  double  appointment, 
that  which  fills  the  material  creation  with  it  as  a 
residence  or  temple  of  religion,  and  that  which 
makes  it,  by  express  direction,  an  ordinance  of  wor- 
ship to  men.  How  carefully  this  part  of  the  wor- 
ship was  ordered  in  the  temple  service  of  Israel,  is 
known  to  every  reader  of  the  ancient  scriptures ; 

9* 


13 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 


how  exactly  also  the  choirs  of  singers  and  of  play- 
ers on  instruments  were  arranged,  one  to  answer  to 
another  in  the  deep  wail  of  grief  or  penitence,  the 
soft  response  of  love,  the  lively  sweep  of  festive 
gladness,  or  all  to  flow  together  in  choral  multitudes 
of  praise  that  might  even  shake  the  rock  of  Zion 
itself. 

And  this  divine  service  of  music  was  ordered  by 
God  himself  through  his  own  prophet :  And  he  set 
the  Levites  in  the  house  of  God,  with  cymbals  and 
psalteries  and  harps,  according  to  the  command- 
ment of  David,  and  of  Gad,  the  king's  seer,  and 
Nathan  the  prophet ;  for  so  was  the  commandment 
of  God  by  his  prophets.  And  the  Levites  and  the 
priests  praised  the  Lord,  day  by  day,  singing  with 
loud  instruments  unto  the  Lord. 

And  to  this  divine  ordinance  of  song  it  is  that 
David  calls,  when  he  says,  offering  to  his  nation  the 
hymns  he  has  written  for  their  anthems  of  praise : 
"  O  come  let  us  sing  unto  the  Lord,  let  us  make  a 
joyful  noise  to  the  rock  of  our  salvation.''  "  Sing 
unto  the  Lord  with  a  harp  and  the  voice  of  a  psalm. 
With  trumpets  and  sound  of  cornet,  make  a  joyful 
noise  before  the  Lord  the  king."  Or  perhaps  you 
may  hear  him  alone  there  in  the  temple  weeping 
out  his  shame  and  sorrow,  in  tears  of  sound,  and 
crying  to  his  harp,  "  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God ! 
according  to  thy  loving  kindness,  according  unto 
the  multitude  of  thy  tender  mercies  blot  out  my 
transgressions." 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  19 

And  if  any  one  wishes  to  know  what  power  there 
may  be  in  music,  as  an  instrument  of  religion,  let 
him  ask  what  effect  the  songs  of  this  one  singer 
have  had,  melted  into  men's  hearts  age  after  age 
by  music,  and  made  in  that  manner  to  be  their 
consecrated  and  customary  expressions  of  worship. 
Suppose,  instead,  he  had  written  a  treatise  of  theol- 
ogy and  given  it  to  the  head  of  mankind  :  what 
tenth  part  of  power  would  he  thus  have  exerted 
over  the  race  ?  And  you  will  remember  that  these 
compositions  of  his  have  their  life  in  the  principles 
of  music.  Without  this  they  would  not  have  been 
preserved,  without  this  they  could  not  have  been 
set  as  they  are  in  the  depths  of  human  feeling,  and? 
what  is  more,  they  are  in  fact  musical  constructions  ; 
for  all  poetry  is  deep  in  the  rhythmic  power  of  music. 
Indeed  you  may  see  as  you  read  these  composi- 
tions, line  answering  to  line,  the  balancing  and  res- 
ponding of  choirs,  and  hear  their  confluence  in  the 
repetitions  of  the  chorus — nay,  you  may  almost  hear 
the  ring  of  the  cymbal,  the  blast  of  the  cornet  and 
the  wail  of  the  harp. 

Besides  it  is  a  fact  that  the  inspirations  of  proph- 
ets and  seers,  and  probably  those  of  David  himself, 
were  connected  as  improvisings  with  religious  mu- 
sic. Thus  Elisha  said,  bring  me  a  minstrel.  And 
it  came  to  pass,  when  the  minstrel  played,  that  the 
hand  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him.  So  also  we 
read  that  when  Saul  was  seized  with  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  it  was  upon  meeting  a  school  of  the  proph- 


20  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

ets  coming  down  a  hill  with  a  psaltery  and  a  tabret 
and  a  pipe  and  a  harp  before  them — a  fact  in  which 
we  see  that  prophetic  vision  itself,  in  the  schools  of 
the  prophets,  was  a  state  of  higher  consciousness 
opened  and  kindled  by  the  elevations  of  religious 
music.  Nor  is  this  any  thing  remarkable,  if  we 
recognize  the  fact  that  God  has  made  the  substan- 
ces of  the  world  to  crystallize  and  grow  under  laws 
of  music ;  so  that  strings  and  tubes  of  metal  and 
wood  and  voices  opening  in  sound,  shall  speak  a 
panharmonic  language  for  whatever  feeling  strug- 
gles in  the  depths  of  the  human  bosom.  Indeed, 
what  human  being,  I  may  almost  say,  though  it 
were  better  to  say,  what  soul  not  closed  against  God 
by  a  life  of  sin,  could  hear  the  24th  Psalm  properly 
delivered,  in  the  grand  choir  of  the  temple  service^ 
without  beginning  to  feel  himself  raised  above  him- 
self, as  if  some  power  of  prophecy  were  in  him  ? 
So  great,  so  mysteriously  powerful  is  the  sway  of 
music  over  the  soul.  We  see  this  in  things  not  re- 
ligious. Many  a  song  like  the  Marseilles  Hymn  has 
revolutionized  an  empire,  or  supported  even  for  ages 
the  nationality  of  a  people.  And  what  is  it  but  the 
martial  beat  of  music,  acting  on  the  yielding  and 
thin  element  of  common  air,  that  lifts  every  foot  of 
an  army  and  rolls  it  onward  with  the  precision  of 
mechanism  and  the  force  of  destiny  through  the 
fiery  hail  of  death.  Or  what  is  it  now  that  gives  to 
a  single  person,  a  woman,  greater  power  of  im- 
pression over  the  feeling  of  mankind,  power  to  sway 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  21 

more  deeply  the  sense  of  whole  nations,  than  any 
living  man  possesses,  whether  statesman  or  poten- 
tate, however  distinguished  by  talent,  however  ab- 
solute in  dominion.  It  is  in  facts  like  these  that  we 
are  to  see  what  sway  God  designs  to  exert  in  hu- 
man bosoms,  through  the  medium  of  this  mysteri- 
ous force,  this  language  of  the  heart,  which  he  has 
appointed  and  set  in  a  connection  so  immediate 
with  our  religious  nature. 

But,  in  order  to  the  high  result  intended,  the  mu- 
sic of  religion  must  be  religious.  There  must  be  a 
distinction  of  sounds.  As  this  language  is  given 
for  the  heart,  it  becomes  a  first  principle  that  it 
must  be  of  the  heart,  else  it  is  an  unknown  tongue. 
And  so  true  is  this,  that  nothing  can  really  fulfill 
the  idea  of  religious  music,  which  is  not  the  breath- 
ing of  true  love  and  worship.  Even  instruments 
without  life,  will  not  speak  the  true  notes  of  power, 
unless  the  touch  of  faith  is  on  them,  and  the  breath 
of  holy  feeling  is  in  them — how  much  less  the  voice 
itself,  whose  very  qualities  of  sound  are  inevitably 
toned  by  the  secret  feeling  of  the  spirit. 

We  speak  of  music  as  a  science,  which  in  one 
view  it  is.  It  is  science  in  the  arrangement,  but  in 
the  execution  more.  The  understanding  or  head 
can  utter  no  proper  music,  least  of  all  religious  mu- 
sic. The  notes  may  be  sounded  in  time  and  pitch 
and  power,  and  yet  the  music  will  not  be  there.  It 
might  as  well  be  imagined  that  a  man  can  be  an 
eloquent  speaker,  because  he   has  the  science   of 


22  DISCOURSES     OX    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

speaking  and  gesture  in  his  head,  with  all  manner 
of  facts,  images  and  arguments  at  command,  as 
that  one  can  pour  out  the  true  inspirations  of  wor- 
ship before  God,  because  he  knows  the  gamut  of 
music  and  the  fingering  of  its  instruments.  A  cer- 
tain counterfeit  may  be  made  in  this  manner,  but  it 
will  be  a  counterfeit — an  uncertain  sound  that  has 
not  the  true  distinctions.  You  may  say,  it  is  well, 
it  is  beautiful  music,  but  for  some  reason  it  will 
not  find  you.  Never  will  it  be  the  proper  language 
of  feeling  to  the  heart,  till  the  spirit  of  adoration  is 
in  it.  There  will  be  a  false  quality  in  the  sounds, 
something  which  says,  ;- this  is  execution/'  some 
token  of  amrjition,  or  affectation,  or  eagerness  of 
impression  ;  the  solemnity  will  be  hollow,  the  soft- 
ness will  be  flat,  the  loudness  a  strain  of  the  flesh. 
By  one  sign  or  another,  what  is  done  out  of  mere 
science  will  reveal  its  weakness  and  falsity.  The 
true  power  of  worship  will  be  felt  only  as  the  true 
life  of  worship  in  the  heart  flows  out  through  all 
notes  and  movements,  and  bathes  the  music  in  dews 
of  heavenly  moisture.  AVhen  the  soul  is  simple 
and  God  is  templed  in  the  inmost  recesses  of  its 
feeling,  then  is  there  a  quality  in  the  voice  and  the 
touch,  that  reveals  and  communicates  the  inspired 
joy  of  the  heart.  And  this  is  power.  Even  the 
most  simple  inartistic  performance,  full  of  love  to 
God  and  the  unaffected  devotion  of  worship,  will 
carry  a  more  profound  impression,  one  of  higher 
sublimity,  than  the  highest  feats  of  execution  and 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  23 

the  finest  strains  of  amateur  propriety,  unkindled 
by  the  heavenly  fire. 

There  is  great  reason  to  suspect  that  the  office  of 
a  choir  and  of  choral  music  is  badly  conceived  in 
our  modern  assemblies  of  worship.  The  true  idea 
of  Christian  music  involves  what  no  mere  drill  or 
teaching  can  reach  ;  a  choral  consciousness,  inward 
elevations,  rhythmic  sweeps  of  feeling,  as  if  the  music 
were  using  the  choir  and  not  they  performing  the 
music.  Poetry  can  as  well  be  written  without  in- 
spiration, as  any  song  of  the  heart's  faith  or  feeling 
sung  by  the  will  and  the  written  concert  of  the  book. 
It  requires  something  back  of  the  voice,  which  is 
higher  in  quality,  a  feeling  chastened,  softened, 
raised,  purified,  glorified,  and  this  beating  as  a  com- 
mon pulse,  a  common  inspiration,  shall  I  say,  in  the 
whole  movement.  To  imagine  that  music  of  any 
kind  can  have  its  genuine  power,  without  the  feel- 
ing or  above  the  feeling,  is  absurd.  It  supposes 
that  music  may  be  good  as  a  lie — good  as  an  ex- 
pression when  there  is  nothing  to  be  expressed. 
Would  that  a  choir  could  once  be  heard  again  on 
earth,  like  that  of  the  school  of  the  prophets ;  a 
choir  that,  with  all  the  advantages  of  modern  sci- 
ence, and  the  more  perfect  instruments  of  modern 
invention,  could  improvise,  in  its  feeling,  the  sub- 
ject and  sentiment  of  its  song ;  pouring  out  a 
world's  anthem — voices  of  life  and  things  without 
life  giving  sound — to  Him  that  made  them  all  and 
hid  in  their  mysterious  mold  powers  of  harmony  to 


24  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

feel  his  touch  and  utter  his  praise.  O  the  deep 
senses  of  God  and  the  soul  and  the  soul's  yearnings 
after  God,  that  might  be  kindled  thus  and  in  awful 
joy  expressed — kindled  also  as  certainly  as  they  are 
expressed  in  the  listening  multitudes  who  hear. 

This,  at  least,  is  the  true  idea  of  Christian  music  ; 
It  is  the  music  of  the  Spirit.  It  is  not  a  something 
given  secundem  artem,  a  touch  of  this  and  a  flourish 
of  that,  or  an  indefinite  piping  and  harping  which 
no  one  can  tell  whether  it  be  this  or  that,  but 
it  is  the  voice  of  truth,  love,  duty,  worship ;  a  dis- 
coursing of  heaven  in  the  language  of  the  heart. 
It  streams  into  feeling  as  it  streams  out  of  feeling, 
and  is  to  the  spirit  a  holy  baptism  of  sound. 

We  read  the  singular'history  of  David,  when  he 
takes  his  harp  to  comfort  Saul  and  soothe  his  mad- 
dened brain,  and  perhaps,  we  say  it  is  impossible. 
But  we  do  not  conceive  the  truth.  It  would  have 
been  impossible,  with  so  much  wood  and  so  many 
strings,  if  that  were  all,  to  accomplish  any  such  re- 
sult. The  best  overture  most  artistically  played? 
would  have  been  powerless.  But  David  is  not 
here  as  an  amateur  player,  he  is  here  in  a  conscious- 
ness glorified  by  holy  trust,  playing  forth  his  prayer 
of  healing,  and  his  love  is  in  the  wood  and  the 
strings,  and  the  spirit  of  God  is  sweeping  as  a  gale 
through  both  him  and  them.     Hence  the  power. 

In  drawing  this  subject  to  a  conclusion,  I  can- 
not forbear  to  say  a  few  words  in  regard  to  the  very 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 


25 


intimate  connection  of  the  sense  of  music  and  the 
cultivation  of  that  sense  with  the  highest  powers  of 
genius  and  literary  excellence.  The  talent  of  music, 
though  in  one  view  not  intellectual,  is  yet  in  another 
even  the  more  divinely  intelligent.  The  language 
of  the  soul's  feeling  we  have  seen,  is  in  it,  and 
nothing  had  ever  yet  any  great  power  over  man 
that  was  divorced  from  feeling.  This  divine  prin- 
ciple of  music  breaks  into  the  style  of  every  good 
writer,  every  powerful  speaker,  and  beats  in  rhyth- 
mic life  in  his  periods.  Even  if  he  is  rough  and 
fierce,  as  he  may  be  and  as  true  genius  often  is,  it 
will  yet  be  the  roughness  of  an  inspired  movement ; 
a  wizard  storm  of  sounds  that  rage  in  melody,  not 
the  dead  jolting  of  cadences  that  have  no  inner 
life  back  of  the  wind-force  that  utters  them.  The 
talent  of  music  is  the  possibility,  in  fact,  of  rhythm, 
of  inspiration,  and  of  all  poetic  life.  A  man  may 
plod,  plot,  speculate  and  sneer,  who  has  no  fibred 
harp  of  music  hid  in  his  feeling ;  he  may  be  a  quali- 
fied atheist,  usurer,  demagogue,  dogmatist  or  hang- 
man ;  but  he  cannot  be  one  that  stirs  men's  blood 
divinely,  whether  in  song  or  in  speech,  and  is  very 
little  like  to  be  much  of  a  Christian. 

Is  there  a  heart  that  music  cannot  melt  ? 

Alas !  how  rugged  is  that  heart  forlorn. 

Is  there  who  ne'er  those  mystic  transports  felt 

Of  solitude  and  melancholy  born  ? 

He  needs  not  woo  the  muse,  he  is  her  scorn. 

3 


26  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

The  sophist  robe  of  cobweb  he  shall  twine, 

Mope  o'er  the  schoolman's  peevish  page,  or  mourn 

And  delve  for  life  in  mammon's  dirty  mine, 

Sneak  with  the  scoundrel  fox,  or  grunt  with  glutton  swine. 

In  these  rather  violent  terms  of  the  poet  Beattie 
we  have  nevertheless  a  very  certain  truth,  and  one 
that  with  proper  allowance  may  be  said  to  hold 
generally.  The  finest  fibre  of  soul  and  the  highest 
inspiration  of  feeling  can  be  formed  only  in  some  con- 
nection more  or  less  intimate  with  a  musical  suscepti- 
bility and  nurture.  Hence  it  is  the  more  remarkable 
that  our  universities  make  so  little  of  music.  They 
labor  at  the  rainbow  and  neglect  the  deeper  mystery 
of  the  musical  octave.  They  teach  the  laws  of  acous- 
tics, but  the  laws  of  music  as  related  to  what  is  deep- 
est and  finest  in  the  soul's  feeling,  they  do  not  at- 
tempt. They  investigate  the  crystallization  of  a  salt, 
but  these  wondrous  and  mysterious  crystallizations 
of  the  air,  in  the  notes  of  music,  they  commonly  pass 
by  ;  greatly  to  the  loss,  it  seems  to  me,  of  those  who 
are  most  concerned  to  receive  what  most  pertains 
to  the  culture  of  the  imagination  and  the  heart. 

But  I  must  not  occupy  too  much  time  with  points 
that  are  separated  from  the  religious  interests  of  my 
subject.  Some  persons  have  a  very  decided  pre- 
judice against  instruments  of  music,  and  even  fancy 
that,  on  that  account,  they  are  more  spiritual  and 
more  strictly  Christian  in  their  views  of  religion. 
Such  a  prejudice  is  greatly  hurtful  to  themselves, 
because  it  takes  them  off  in  a  kind  of  schism,'  from 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGWOUS    MUSIC.  27 

this  part  of  the  worship,  and  a  share  in  its  benefits. 
Can  they  imagine  that  they  are  borne  out  in  their 
prejudice  by  the  Scripture  ;  or  have  they  never 
read  the  Psalms  of  David  ?  What  instrument  was 
there  which  he  did  not  bring  into  the  temple  and 
command  to  open  its  voice  unto  God?  Even  the 
trumpets,  after  a  week's  battle,  must  come  and 
change  their  note  to  an  anthem  of  victory.  Imagine 
this  great  singer  of  Israel  and  the  vast  company  of 
the  Levites  hearing,  for  the  first  time,  in  the  temple 
of  God,  a  newly  invented  organ,  such  as  the  instru- 
ment now  perfected  by  modern  art,  such  as  the 
beautiful  instrument  just  now  erected  for  your  so- 
ciety. What  emotions  roll  over  his  soul  and  the 
souls  of  his  great  choir  of  performers.  No  breath 
will  blow !  No  hand  will  strike  the  strings !  All  the 
instruments  and  voices  are  dumb  !  He  rises,  when 
the  experiment  is  over  and  goes  forth  saying  in 
himself,  "  I  will  alter  now  my  Psalms,  I  will  say  no 
more  of  trumpets  and  cornets,  I  will  call  no  more 
for  psalteries,  and  instruments  of  ten  strings.  Pro- 
fane all  these  and  trivial !  But  this  is  the  instru- 
ment of  God!"  And  so,  in  fact,  it  now  is.  The 
grandest  of  all  instruments,  it  is,  as  it  should  be,  the 
instrument  of  religion.  Profane  uses  cannot  han- 
dle it.  It  will  not  go  to  the  battle,  nor  the  dance, 
nor  the  serenade ;  for  it  is  the  holy  Nazarite  and 
cannot  leave  the  courts  of  the  Lord.  What  room 
is  there  for  a  reasonable  prejudice  against  such  an 
instrument?      And  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  been 


28 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 


showing,  that  God  has  voiced  the  dead  substances 
of  the  world  to  sing  his  praise,  if  he  has  made  the 
round  earth  and  all  things  in  it  to  be  an  organ  of 
sound  about  us,  what  should  more  delight  us  than 
to  bring  into  concert  with  our  voices  an  instrument 
that  is  the  type  of  an  appointment  so  sublime  ?  A 
true  Christian  feeling,  it  seems  to  me,  will  ever  turn 
thus  to  things  without  life  giving  sound,  and  hail 
their  assistance  in  the  praise  of  God  ;  finding  half 
the  sublimity  of  praise  in  the  concert  of  the  inani- 
mate works  of  the  Almighty  Creator.  It  will  even 
cry  with  David  to  the  fire  and  the  hail,  snow  and 
vapors,  stormy  wind  fulfilling  his  word,  mountains 
and  all  hills,  fruitful  trees  and  all  cedars,  to  join 
their  voice  with  his,  and  praise  the  Lord.  And 
what  harm  will  it  be  if  they  join  him  in  the  shape 
of  an  organ  ? 

Let  me  also  suggest,  in  this  connection,  the  very 
great  importance  of  the  cultivation  of  religious  mu- 
sic. Every  family  should  be  trained  in  it ;  every 
Sunday  or  common  school  should  have  it  as  one  of 
its  exercises.  The  Moravians  have  it  as  a  kind  of 
ordinance  of  grace  for  their  children ;  not  without 
reason,  for  the  powers  of  feeling  and  imagination, 
and  the  sense  of  spiritual  realities,  are  developed  as 
much  by  a  training  of  childhood  in  religious  music, 
as  by  any  other  means.  We  complain  that  choirs 
and  organs  take  the  music  to  themselves,  in  our 
churches,  and  that  nothing  is  left  to  the  people,  but 
to  hear  their  undistinguishable  piping,  which  no  one 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  29 

else  can  join,  or  follow,  or  interpret.  This  must  al- 
ways be  the  complaint,  till  the  congregations  them- 
selves have  exercise  enough  in  singing  to  make  the 
performance  theirs.  As  soon  as  they  are  able  to 
throw  in  masses  of  sound  that  are  not  barbarous 
but  Christian,  and  have  a  right  enjoyment  of  their 
feeling  in  it,  they  will  have  the  tunes  and  the  style 
of  the  exercise  in  their  own  way,  not  before.  En- 
tering one  day,  the  great  church  of  Jesus  in  Rome, 
when  ail  the  vast  area  of  the  pavement  was  covered 
with  worshipers  on  their  knees,  chanting  in  full 
voice,  led  by  the  organ,  their  confession  of  penitence 
and  praise  to  God,  I  was  impressed,  as  never  before, 
with  the  essential  sublimity  of  this  rite  of  worship, 
and  I  could  not  but  wish  that  our  people  were 
trained  to  a  similar  exercise.  The  more  sorrowful 
is  it  that  in  our  present  defect  of  culture,  there  are 
so  many  voices  which  are  more  incapable  of  the 
right  distinctions  of  sound  than  things  without  life, 
and  which,  when  they  attempt  to  sing,  contribute 
more  to  the  feeling  of  woe  than  of  praise. 

I  cannot  close  without  carrying  your  thoughts 
forward,  a  n:oment,  to  the  scenes  of  the  future  life. 
It  is  sometimes  made  a  question,  how  far  the  feli- 
city of  the  blessed  hereafter  will  consist  in  this  par- 
ticular exercise  of  worship.  I  allude  not  here  to  the 
low-minded  and  barbarous  sneers  of  infidels,  scoff- 
ing at  the  Christian  heaven  as  a  paradise  of  perpet- 
ual psalm,  but  to  the  serious  doubts  of  Christian 
interpreters.     It  is   not  to  be  denied,  as  many  of 


30  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

them  suggest,  that  our  current  representations  of 
this  subject  are  derived,  in  great  part,  if  not  wholly, 
from  the  Apocalypse  or  book  of  Revelation.  Nei- 
ther can  it  be  denied  that  the  anthems  of  praise 
heard  in  heaven  by  the  seer  of  Patmos,  are  visional 
anthems,  as  the  beasts  and  four  and  twenty  elders 
are  visional  beings — representations  above  that  her- 
ald and  connect  with  scenes  of  history  to  come  on 
earth.  And  yet  they  encourage,  it  seems  to  me, 
the  common  impression,  even  if  they  do  not  reveal 
what  is  actually  transacted  in  the  world  of  the  glo- 
rified. This,  at  least,  we  know,  that  souls  are 
organs  still  of  feeling,  and  if  they  have  great  feeling 
to  express,  it  will  be  strange  if  they  have  not  the 
language  of  feeling  too.  As  to  what  we  call  sound 
in  our  grosser  and  more  material  sense,  we  of  course 
know  nothing  of  it  as  of  the  spiritual  body  itself 
And  yet  there  may  be  and  is  like  to  be  a  finer  me- 
dium of  sound,  a  more  spiritual  music,  which  the 
music  of  the  earth  only  images  or  represents,  just 
as  there  is  to  be  a  finer  organ  of  body,  which  our 
grosser  body  represents.  And  then,  again,  what 
have  we  in  the  fact  that  a  law  of  music  penetrates 
and  fills  this  whole  empire  of  being,  making  the 
known  universe  itself  an  organ  voiced  for  the  ex- 
pression of  the  heart,  but  a  prophecy  given,  or  a 
plain  inference,  that  as  hearts  are  eternal,  so  all 
realms  of  God  to  which  the  blessed  go,  are  forever 
to  thrill  in  ecstacies  of  sound.  Besides,  what  is  the 
joy  of  the  glorified,  but  a  joy  of  society  ;  that  is,  of 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  31 

feeling  expressed,  society  in  pure  and  great  feeling, 
immediate,  spontaneous,  universal ;  propagated,  of 
course,  by  some  fit  medium.  By  what  other  unless 
by  voices  of  feeling  whose  speech  is  music,  voices 
angelically  tempered  by  the  inward  love  and  purity, 
flowing  into  choirs  of  harmony  and  improvised  an- 
thems that  as  waves  of  sound,  are  but  the  ocean 
beat  and  swell  of  bosoms  conscious  of  God.  And 
I  heard  the  voice  of  a  great  multitude,  and  as  the 
voice  of  many  waters,  and  as  the  voice  of  mighty 
thunderings,  saying,  Alleluia,  for  the  Lord  God  om- 
nipotent reigneth.  Many  waters — mighty  thun- 
derings— chorus  of  sea  and  air,  deep  and  wide  as 
both !  in  the  clearness  of  purity,  the  fullness  of 
love,  the  tremendous  emphasis  of  righteousness 
swearing  its  Amen  to  God  and  his  judgments. 


II.    DISCOURSE. 


Psalm  cl.  3,  4,  5.  Praise  Him  with  the  sound  of  the  trumpet: 
Praise  Him  with  the  psaltery  and  harp:  Praise  Him  with 
the  timbrel  and  dance:  praise  hlm  with  stringed  instru- 
ments and  organs  i  praise  hlm  upon  the  loud  cymbals  !  praise 
Him  upon  the  high-sounding  cymbals. 

Praise  is  the  highest  act  of  worship.  It  calls 
into  exercise  the  loftiest  class  of  emotions.  It  is  an 
expression  of  gratitude,  confidence,  and  solemn 
veneration.  There  is  less  of  self-regard  in  this  part 
of  our  religious  services,  a  more  direct  going  forth 
of  the  soul  towards  God,  than  in  any  other.  There 
are  certain  states  of  mind,  in  which  it  is  hard  for  us 
to  sing  praises.  The  psaltery  and  the  high-sound- 
ing cymbal  do  not  express  the  prevailing  emotion 
of  our  hearts.  "  Out  of  the  deep  we  cry  unto  the 
Lord."  The  heavy  atmosphere  that  we  breathe  is 
not  elastic  enough  to  give  a  free  vibration.  If  we 
strike  the  note  of  joy,  it  dies  off  into  a  sob  and  a 
wail.  But  this  is  only  when  we  are  shut  up  within 
the  narrow  range  of  our  own  personal  wants  and 


34  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

woes,  or  when  the  sense  of  personal  ill-desert  un- 
tunes the  harmonies  of  the  soul. 

All  emotions  and  feelings  have  their  peculiar  lan- 
guage :  despair  utters  itself  in  moans  of  agony,  or- 
dinary sorrow  relieves  itself  in  sighs,  and  when  the 
heart  is  glad,  we  are  impelled  "to  sing,  rejoice  and 
give  thanks."  We  pray  with  the  common  articu- 
lations of  speech  ;  but,  when  we  would  "praise 
God  in  the  sanctuary,"  we  start  to  our  feet,  and 
shape  our  words  to  the  sweet  tones  and  cadences 
of  music.  We  do  this,  because  such  is  the  law  of 
our  nature ;  beyond  this  we  can  give  no  explana- 
tion. Why  it  is,  that  one  sound  is  musical,  and 
another  unmusical;  that  one  combination  of  notes 
is  concordant,  and  another  discordant;  that  the 
minor  key  awakens  tender  thoughts,  while  the  ma- 
jor is  jubilant;  we  cannot  tell.  We  can  resolve 
music  into  a  complete  science ;  we  can  analyze  the 
wonderful  combination  of  sound,  which  so  entran- 
ces us,  into  its  primary  elements  ;  we  can  adjust  the 
scale  with  mathematical  nicety  and  distinguish  all 
its  fractional  intervals  ;  but  we  have  not  detected  the 
secret  of  its  magic  power.  We  feel  that  different 
emotions  are  excited  by  different  movements  in 
music,  and  by  the  tones  of  different  instruments  ; 
the  clangor  of  the  drum,  the  peal  of  the  trumpet,  the 
crash  of  the  cymbal,  fire  the  blood  and  brace  the 
nerves  and  stir  the  soul  to  heroic  deeds;  the  liquid 
breathings  of  the  flute  calm  the  fevered  brain  and  are 
associated  with  the  twilight  and  the  stars  ;  the  rapid 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  35 

tinkling  of  the  wires  provokes  to  merriment ;  the 
slow  tolling  of  the  bell  strikes  against  the  heart  with 
the  pulsation  of  agony ;  the  full,  majestic  roll  of  the 
organ  lifts  us  above  the  world  and  makes  all  human 
and  earthly  things  to  be  absorbed  in  the  divine. 

There  is  no  emotion  that  is  not  capable  of  being 
expressed  in  music.  But  it  naturally  denotes  joy 
and  triumph,  and  it  indicates  a  refinement  upon  its 
normal  state  to  make  it  expressive  of  tender  and 
melancholy  feelings.  The  character  of  the  earliest 
musical  instruments  illustrates  this  ;  they  were  gen- 
erally pulsatile,  or  instruments  of  percussion,  which 
are  incapable  of  exciting  or  expressing  any  of  the 
more  delicate  emotions. 

Although  the  first  use  of  music  was  religious,  it 
was  soon  perverted,  especially  among  the  Greeks, 
to  the  purposes  of  licentiousness,  sensualizing  and 
debasing  the  national  character ;  and  yet  it  may  be 
observed,  that  no  musical  note  in  itself  ever  ex- 
presses or  suggests  an  inhuman  or  a  debasing 
thought.  The  sound  may  become  associated  with 
unholy  words  and  occasions,  and  from  this  contact 
acquire  a  sort  of  taint ;  but  the  language  of  music 
itself  is  always  pure  and  elevating.  The  two  con- 
ditions of  musical  expression  are  melody  and  har- 
mony ;  and  these  are  typical  of  the  loftiest  state  of 
the  soul  and  the  most  advanced  period  of  society. 
Discord  is  the  emblem  of  evil:  concord  is  the  very 
essential  principle  of  good. 


36  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

Music,  considered  as  a  science,  opens  a  wonder- 
ful field  of  study.  It  is,  in  every  particular,  subject 
to  the  most  rigid  and  subtle  law;  and  it  sustains 
certain  strange  analogies  to  other  departments  of 
nature.  As  there  are  but  seven  primary  colors,  so 
there  are  but  seven  primary  notes  of  music.  As 
certain  combinations  of  the  prismatic  hues  produce 
darkness,  so  certain  combinations  of  sound  nullify 
each  other  and  produce  silence.  It  has  long  been 
known  that  music  was  occasioned  by  aerial  vibra- 
tions ;  and  now  it  is  a  prevailing  opinion  that  light 
and  heat  and  magnetism  are  also  the  effect  of  vi- 
bration. All  motion  has  the  necessary  effect  to  pro- 
duce sound,  provided  that  it  takes  place  in  an  elas- 
tic medium  ;  although  the  motion  may  be  so  slow, 
that  the  vibration  produces  no  impression  upon  our 
senses.  If  these  senses  were  more  acute,  we  might 
distinguish  sounds,  where  now  all  is  stillness.  It 
was  a  magnificent  conception,  that  of  the  morning 
stars  singing  together,  at  the  moment  of  creation  : 
all  these  planets  and  stars  and  suns,  as  they  revolve 
in  their  mighty  orbits,  with  varying  but  harmonious 
speed,  giving  out  one  great  anthem,  which  fills  the 
universe  with  melody  !  And  this  poetical  concep- 
tion of  the  ancients,  science  would  now  indicate  to 
be  an  actual  truth :  for  it  is  demonstrated  that  there 
is  no  vacuum  in  space  :  beyond  the  grosser  atmos- 
phere which  we  breathe,  there  lies  what  is  sometimes 
termed  a  luminiferous  ether,  the  most  refined  and 
elastic  of  all  substances,  the  medium  of  light  and 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  37 

heat  and  attraction;  and  why  not,  therefore,  of 
sound  ?  If  so,  the  rushing  of  these  worlds  through 
space,  resolves  the  universe  into  one  great  instru- 
ment of  music  : 

"  Forever  singing  as  they  shine, 
The  hand  that  made  us  is  divine." 

Music  is  older  than  man.  Before  an  articulate 
word  was  ever  spoken  here,  before  a  man  was  found 
to  till  the  earth,  from  morning  till  evening,  the  air 
was  vocal  with  melody.  The  ocean,  breaking  on 
the  solitary  shore  of  continents  ;  the  cataract,  pour- 
ing its  tremendous  volume  over  the  precipice  ;  the 
thunder,  ever  and  anon  rending  the  dark  heavens ; 
the  winds,  sighing  among  the  pines,  eddying  down 
in  the  deep  valleys,  beating  against  the  high  gla- 
ciers ;  mingled  their  deep  base  with  the  fluting  of 
the  sweet-voiced  bird,  the  tinkling  of  the  pebbly 
brook,  the  soft  flow  of  the  river,  the  bubbling  of  the 
fountain,  the  light  pattering  of  the  rain  upon  the 
leaves,  the  wild  hum  of  countless  insects,  the  lowing 
of  the  herds,  and  all  those  other  minor  strains  of 
nature,  the  ringing  of  the  flower-bells,  the  vibra- 
tion of  the  crystalline  rock,  the  spiritual  melody  of 
that  electric  power  that  encircles  the  earth ;  which 
only  God  and  the  angels  can  hear. 

Nature  was  thus  full  of  music,  before  man  was 
made.     And  now  that  he  exists,  music  is  as  natural 
to  him   as   speech.     Every  nation  has  something, 
4 


38  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

which  it  calls  music.  But  it  is  only  where  the  race 
has  become  highly  cultivated,  that  the  scientific 
laws  of  harmony  have  been  detected,  and  the  prac- 
tice of  the  art  been  carried  to  any  high  degree  of 
advancement.  When  we  contrast  the  loftiest  ef- 
forts of  modern  music  with  the  barren  and  monot- 
onous strains  in  which  our  barbaric  fathers  de- 
lighted, it  is  difficult  to  feel  that  there  is  any  anal- 
ogy between  the  grandeur  of  the  one  and  the  pue- 
rile jingling  of  the  other;  but  let  us  remember,  it  is 
possible  that  a  future  age  may  draw  a  like  compar- 
ison between  our  present  performances  and  the 
transcendent  melodies  in  which  they  will  luxuriate.  ' 
For  music,  above  every  other  art,  seems  to  be  capa- 
ble of  unlimited  advance.  We  can  conceive  of 
perfect  sculpture,  but  not  of  perfect  music.  What- 
ever art  is  purely  imitative,  must  have  a  limit ;  but 
music  is  not  imitative  :  it  is,  in  its  higher  forms, 
the  expression  of  a  thought,  and  it  is  strangely,  in* 
comprehensively,  powerfully  suggestive  of  thought. 
Where  there  are  no  words  used,  it  suggests  words 
to  the  mind,  or  rather,  the  material  out  of  which 
words  are  made ;  it  enkindles  emotions,  which  no 
language  can  stir.  Why  it  is,  we  cannot  tell ;  but 
we  find  it  to  be  the  fact  that  certain  qualities  and 
combinations  of  sound  open  the  flood-gate  of  mem- 
ory, revive  what  was  long  forgotten,  excite  the  deep- 
est thought,  make  the  blood  tingle,  lift  the  soul  out 
of  the  body,  carry  it  above  the  clouds,  and  bring  us 
close  to  the  great  throne  of  the  Almighty. 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  39 

And  yet,  some  will  ask,  what  is  the  use  of  music  ? 
They  might  as  well  ask,  what  is  the  use  of  color,  or 
of  any  thing  which  makes  the  world  a  glory  and  a 
beauty?  Why  was  not  the  landscape  clothed  in 
drab ;  and  the  evening  cloud  always  of  a  leaden 
hue  ?  Why  are  there  any  flowers  in  the  fields,  or 
birds  in  the  air  with  crimson  plumage?  Why  is 
the  shell  of  the  beetle  so  radiant  with  glory  ?  Why 
is  there  so  much  of  magnificence  in  nature,  even 
where  the  eye  of  man  never  penetrates  ?  Gorgeous 
grottoes  hidden  in  the  earth  ;  fragrance  and  splendor 
in  the  solitary  wilderness;  things  animate  and  in- 
animate in  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  exquisite  in  form 
and  glistening  in  gold  and  vermilion  ?  It  should 
be  a  part  of  our  religion  to  appreciate  the  beautiful, 
and  that  religion  which  separates  itself  from  these 
symbols  of  God,  is  so  far  forth  a  defective  and  a 
false  religion.  Whatever  tends  to  elevate  man,  to 
unsensualize  him,  to  lift  him  out  of  the  domain  of 
mere  appetite,  to  take  him  away  from  himself,  and 
give  him  grand  emotions,  high  aspirations,  good 
thoughts  ;  whatever  makes  him  feel — what  I  fear 
very  many  do  not  feel — that  he  is  a  soul  and  not  a 
body,  created  for  something  more  than  to  make 
money  and  feed  himself  and  become  a  man  of  note 
in  society  ;  whatever  impresses  him  with  the  feeling 
that  he  is  immortal,  that  he  cannot  die,  that  he  has 
capacities  which  ten  thousand  worlds  like  this  could 
never  fill,  powers  which  assimilate  him  with  the 
angels,  with  the  sons  of  God  on  high,  with   God 


40  DISCOURSES    OX    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

Himself ;  whatever  does  this  belongs  to  religion,  and 
cannot  be  despised,  without  casting  contempt  upon 
the  Author  of  all  things. 

And  this  is  done  by  music  :  it  refines,  elevates, 
spiritualizes,  widens  the  range  of  vision,  and  binds 
this  existence  to  the  eternal.  For  music  will  out- 
last speech.  Articulate  language  may  be  needed 
no  longer  after  we  have  done  with  the  body ;  but 
the  essential  elements  of  musical  expression  are 
eternal.  Language  is  arbitrary  and  therefore  tem- 
porary :  music  is  the  product  of  fixed  laws,  and 
therefore  must  be  permanent.  Even  in  our  present 
state,  we  find  that  it  can  express  more  than  words ; 
and  the  fact  that  it  is  composed,  before  it  is  ren- 
dered, and  that  one  skilled  in  music  may  read  this 
composition  with  pleasure,  without  hearing  an  au- 
dible sound,  shows  that  it  is  essentially  independ- 
ent of  instruments  and  voices.  I  say  then,  here  we 
have  an  argument  for  immortality;  for  here  is  a 
power,  belonging  to  us,  which  is  independent  of  the 
body;  you  can  sing  without  the  mouth  and  hear 
without  the  ear  and  have  music  in  your  soul,  when 
there  is  no  movement  in  the  air ;  and  the  melody 
may  therefore  continue  and  grow  more  full  and 
sweet  and  entrancing,  after  this  earthly  instrument 
has  turned  to  dust ! 

We  shall  now  briefly  sketch  the  history  of  music, 
as  a  sacred  art,  in  its  connection  with  the  Jewish 
and  the  Christian  church.  Vocal  music  is  probably 
coeval  with  the  history  of  our  race.     Nature  would 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  41 

dictate  song,  as  early  as  speech.  Instrumental  mu- 
sic, in  some  rude  form,  has  nearly  the  same  anti- 
quity. In  the  seventh  generation  from  Adam,  we 
read  of  one  as  distinguished  among  performers  upon 
the  harp  and  organ.  Five  hundred  and  fifty  years 
after  the  deluge,  we  find  both  vocal  and  instrumen- 
tal music  in  use ;  for  Laban  then  reproaches  Jacob 
because  he  did  not  announce  his  departure  from 
the  house,  and  thus  be  sent  away  "with  mirth,  and 
with  songs,  with  tabret  and  with  harp." 

The  Hebrews  derived  their  ideas  of  music  from. 
Egypt;  a  country  to  which  they  were  indebted  for 
many  other  things  besides  the  stern  discipline  of 
servitude.  The  Egyptians,  who  were  the  pioneers 
of  ancient  civilization,  were  probably  the  first  peo- 
ple who  gave  to  music  any  thing  like  a  scientific 
form.  It  is  to  the  Egyptian  Mercury,  or  Thoth, 
that  the  invention  of  the  three-stringed  lyre  is  attrib- 
uted. The  single  flute,  called  Photinx,  is  also  as- 
cribed to  this  people.  Before  these  inventions,  it  is 
supposed  that  music  consisted  in  little  more  than  a 
mere  metrical  movement. 

That  the  Hebrews  were  accustomed  to  the  per- 
formance of  music  in  Egypt  appears  from  the  fact, 
that,  on  the  very  morning  after  their  escape,  Moses 
and  the  children  of  Israel  sung  together  a  song  of 
thanksgiving;  Miriam,  the  prophetess,  writh  the 
women,  responding  to  the  anthem,  with  timbrels  in 
their  hands.  If  the  music  corresponded  with  the 
4* 


42  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

magnificent  diction  of  the  song,  the  performance 
must  have  been  transcendently  sublime. 

On  several  occasions  during  the  wandering  of  the 
Jews  in  the  wilderness,  there  are  references  to  the 
use  of  music;  and  we  read  that  Moses  caused  silver 
trumpets  to  be  made,  by  the  notes  of  which  the 
movements  of  the  camp  were  regulated. 

It  was  not,  however,  until  they  were  quietly  set- 
tled in  Judea,  that  this  part  of  Jewish  worship  was 
carefully  cultivated.  The  reign  of  David  was  the 
era  of  Jewish  music.  This  monarch  introduced  a 
variety  of  new  instruments,  composed  both  poetry 
and  music,  and  took  the  lead  in  its  performance. 
He  divided  the  Levites  into  twenty-four  courses,  as- 
signing to  each  its  proper  place  in  the  musical  ser- 
vice ;  and  these  twenty-four  bands,  each  with  its 
own  leader,  and  these  in  their  turn  subordinate  to 
three  chiefs,  served  in  the  worship  by  turns  ;  and 
this  constituted  their  whole  employment.  Towards 
the  close  of  his  reign,  David  had  trained  nearly 
three  hundred  vocal,  and  four  thousand  instrumental 
performers. 

His  successor  in  the  throne  enlarged  this  force ; 
and  at  the  completion  of  the  temple,  not  only  intro- 
duced all  the  instruments  of  David,  but  added  many 
others  of  a  richer  character.  The  art,  amongst  the 
Jews,  was  now  at  its  height;  and  the  effect  produ- 
ced upon  the  multitude  must  have  been  intensely 
grand  and  exciting,  when,  at  the  morning  and 
evening  service  of  Mount  Zion,  amid  the  waving 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  43 

of  golden  censers,  and  the  smoke  of  burnt  sacrifices 
going  up  to  heaven,  the  responsive  choirs  chanted 
the  glorious  Psalms  of  David,  the  accompaniment 
of  a  thousand  instruments  of  music  sounding  forth 
like  the  noise  of  many  waters. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  same  music  would 
produce  a  like  effect  upon  us,  in  our  present  state 
of  culture.  When  we  consider  the  nature  of  the 
instruments  then  in  use,  most  of  them  being  capa- 
ble of  emitting  only  a  single,  loud  note  ;  the  imper- 
fection of  the  musical  scale,  and  the  absence  of  any 
thing  like  our  modern  notation  ;  and  the  further  cir- 
cumstance that  there  was  no  combination  of  parts, 
the  laws  of  harmony  being  unknown,  while  the 
melody  itself  was  of  the  plainest  character  ;  we  can 
readily  infer  that  there  was  little  in  ancient  music 
to  gratify  a  refined  and  cultivated  taste.  It  ac- 
corded, however,  with  the  existing  state  of  culture, 
and  therefore  it  must  have  been  effective.* 

After  the  reign  of  Solomon,  the  distracted  condi- 
tion of  the  Jewish  nation  caused  the  forms  of  pub- 
lic worship  to  fall  into  disorder  and  neglect,  and  the 
national    music    degenerated ;    and    when    at   last 

*  The  story  is  told  of  an  Asiatic  prince,  who  was  invited  to  an 
elaborate  musical  performance,  with  the  expectation  that  he 
would  be  overwhelmed  with  its  grandeur  and  beauty ;  but, 
to  the  astonishment  of  his  friends,  the  most  delightful  part  of 
the  entertainment  to  his  ear  was  the  discordant  tuning  of  the  in- 
struments at  the  commencement.  This,  he  desired  to  have 
repeated. 


44  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

Israel  was  carried  captive  into  Babylon,  for  seventy- 
years,  "  they  hanged  their  harps  upon  the  willows." 
At  the  restoration  of  Judah,  there  were  found  scat- 
tered about  the  cities,  two  hundred  performers  and 
singers ;  in  the  seventh  month,  these  were  collected 
at  Jerusalem  and  assisted  at  laying  the  foundation 
of  the  second  temple,  and  at  the  dedication  of  the 
new  walls  of  the  city.  But,  the  splendor  of  the 
Jewish  ritual  was  now  dimmed,  the  song  of  sacred 
joy  was  sung  with  a  fainter  note,  and  the  art  of 
music  never  again  regained  the  position  which  it 
had  attained  under  David  and  Solomon. 

The  music  of  the  Christian  Church  was  at  first 
the  same  in  form  with  the  Jewish.  It  consisted  of 
a  simple  recitation  of  the  Psalms,  all  chanting  to- 
gether in  unison,  and  adapting  the  quality  of  the 
sound  to  the  emotion  designed  to  be  expressed. 
The  early  Christians  appear  to  have  highly  enjoyed 
their  music,  and  to  have  made  it  a  part  of  their 
stated  worship. 

About  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  Flavia- 
nus,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  established  a  regular  choir 
in  his  church,  which  was  divided  into  two  parts,  and 
sung  the  Psalms  of  David  by  alternate  verses.  Am- 
brose, Bishop  of  Milan,  introduced  the  same  prac- 
tice, with  a  higher  style  of  music,  into  the  Western 
Church,  towards  the  end  of  the  fourth  century.* 

*  "  They  still  use  these  old  austere  chants  of  surpassing  beauty, 
which  have  been  handed  down  to  them  through  centuries — the 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  45 

The  next  important  step  in  the  progress  of  sacred 
music  was  made  by  Gregory  the  Great,  who  intro- 
duced what  is  called  the  Gregorian  Chant ;  in  which 
he  made  the  notes  all  of  the  same  length.  He  en- 
couraged  the  cultivation  of  musical  art,  and  founded 
a  singing  school,  which  existed  for  three  hundred 
years  after  his  death. 

From  the  time  of  the  great  schism  in  the  Church, 
the  Eastern  branch  made  no  progress  in  music.  It 
was  not  till  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, that  the  Russians  adopted  the  modern  method 
of  writing  music. 

There  was  no  material  improvement  in  the  West- 
ern Church,  till  the  invention  of  counterpoint,  or 
harmony.  It  may  well  seem  strange  to  us,  that  be- 
fore the  eleventh  century,  there  is  no  evidence  of 
any  knowledge  of  parts  in  music.  The  chief  dis- 
tinction appears  to  have  been,  between  hymns  sung 
by  a  single  voice,  and  psalms  chanted  by  the  whole 
congregation,  in  unison  or  octaves. 

In  the  same  century  when  this  great  improve- 
ment was  commenced,  there  was   also  invented  a 


Lydian  and  Phrygian  tunes,  first  introduced  into  the  western 
Churches  by  St.  Ambrose.  St.  Augustine  himself  listened  to 
them  in  the  Church  of  Milan,  when  he  represents  himself  as  be- 
ing melted  to  tears,  and  even  expressed  the  fear  lest  such  harmo- 
nious airs  might  be  too  tender  for  the  manly  spirit  of  Christian 
devotion." — Kip's  Christmas  Holydays  in  Rome. 


46  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

system  of  musical  signs  and  characters,  to  imply 
different  portions  of  time.* 

At  the  period  of  the  Reformation,  the  only  change 
at  first  attempted  in  the  Church  of  England,  bear- 
ing upon  the  music  of  the  Church,  was  the  substi- 
tution of  English  for  Latin  words  in  public  service  ; 
the  music  itself  continued  to  be  very  complicated, 
as  it  had  been  before.  In  the  reign  of  Edward  YL, 
metrical  psalmody  was  for  the  first  time  introduced  ; 
Sternhold  having  made  his  famous  version  of  the 
Psalms  in  metre,  a  few  years  before.  During  the 
reign  of  Mary,  there  was  no  great  change  in  the 
musical  portions  of  the  service,  excepting  the  re-in- 
troduction of  the  Latin  tongue.  But,  while  Eliza- 
beth was  on  the  throne, — who  was  herself  a  practi- 
cal musician, — the  subject  began  to  attract  consid- 
erable attention.  The  Council  of  Trent  had  repro- 
bated "the  curious  singing"  that  prevailed  in  the 
churches;  and  it  was  hardly  to  be  supposed  that 
such  a  style  of  performance  would  meet  with 
greater  favor  among  the  reformed.  Violent  attacks 
were  made  in  England  upon  the  music  then  in  use, 
and  it  was  proposed  in  the  Lower  House  that  all 
organs  should  be  removed  from  the  church.  The 
singing  of  metrical  psalms  began  to  increase  in 
popularity,  until,  in  1643,  all  other  kinds  of  ecclesi- 
astical harmony  were  suppressed  by  law.     After  the 

*  Before  this,  the  only  signs  used  for  this  purpose  were  two, 
viz  :  —  ^ 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  47 

restoration  of  Charles  II.,  great  improvements  were 
made  in  both  melody  and  harmony  ;  since  which 
time,  the  style  of  English  church  music  has  sustained 
a  somewhat  uniform  and  fixed  character. 

But  little  can  be  said  of  the  history  of  church 
music  in  our  own  country.  Until  a  recent  date,  no 
general  interest  in  the  subject  existed  amongst  us, 
and  very  little  was  done  in  the  way  of  improvement. 
Our  forefathers  were  more  deeply  interested  in  the 
metaphysics  of  dogmatic  theology,  than  they  were 
in  "  the  beauty  of  holiness."  They  were  but  slightly 
concerned  for  the  adornments  of  worship,  and  strip- 
ped their  religion  as  clear  as  possible  of  every  thing 
which  would  be  likely  to  make  it  externally  attrac- 
tive. They  could  tie  and  untie  tough  doctrinal 
knots  with  marvelous  facility,  but  they  could  not 
make  fringes  for  the  curtains  of  the  sanctuary. 
The  cultivation  of  a  refined  taste  in  matters  pertain- 
ing to  public  worship  was  abjured  upon  principle. 
No  where  has  the  working  of  this  feeling  been  more 
strikingly  manifested,  than  in  our  popular  sacred 
music.  If  it  had  resulted  in  securing  a  rigid  sim- 
plicity, a  plain  and  natural  expression  of  religious 
feeling  through  the  medium  of  sacred  song,  we 
might  have  been  content.  But  it  has  not  been  so. 
Musical  ambition  will  find  its  way  into  the  choir, 
as  well  as  ecclesiastical  ambition  into  the  pulpit ; 
where  the  organ  was  excluded,  other  instruments  of 
a  less  majestic  tone  would  gradually  intrude ;  where 
the  solemn  voluntary  before  the  psalm  would  have 


48  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

been  accounted  an  abomination,  the  simple  pitching 
of  the  tune  was  gradually  elaborated  into  the  most 
extraordinary  preliminary  flourish  of  sounds,  in 
which  thirds,  fifths  and  octaves  seemed  to  be  mis- 
cellaneously rambled  over  in  search  of  the  true  key; 
and  occasionally  an  anthem  would  be  introduced, 
of  which  the  interminable  fugue  constituted  the 
leading  ornament,  in  which,  for  the  most  part,  each 
of  the  parts  was  occupied  with  a  distinct  set  of 
words,  and  such  a  voluminous  uproar  of  voices 
filled  the  place  that 

u  Milder  thunders  burst  unheard  above." 

More  recently,  a  change  for  the  better  has  com- 
menced. But  it  has  only  commenced.  It  is  still 
the  fact,  that,  in  many  of  our  churches,  nothing  but 
sacred  associations  render  the  music  endurable.  As 
it  regards  both  the  poetry  and  the  music,  our  popu- 
lar psalmody  is  behind  the  secular  standard  of  cul- 
ture. There  is  still  a  melancholy  amount  of  poor 
prose  split  off  into  verse,  and  labeled  as  sacred 
hymns.  There  would  be  as  much  propriety  in  under- 
taking to  sing  a  mathematical  demonstration  or  an 
extract  from  i;  Edwards  on  the  Will,"  as  there  is  in 
rendering  into  song  some  of  our  didactic  and  doc- 
trinal hymns.  We  would  not  assert  that  every 
hymn  should  be  strictly  lyrical,  but  it  would  seem 
to  be  proper  that  it  should  express  some  sentiment 
or  emotion. 

As  there  is  a  style  of  poetical  composition  appro- 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  49 

priate  to  worship,  not  only  in  respect  of  the  subject, 
but  also  of  the  metre  and  rhythm,  so  there  is  of  music- 
al composition  and  performance.  There  is  an  ecclesi- 
astical tone,  which  is  altogether  peculiar.  It  is  hal- 
lowed by  peculiar  associations,  and  suggests  pecul- 
iar thoughts,  and  has  a  peculiar  sacredness.  It  has 
been  used  "  in  the  ages  all  along/'  and  has  nerved 
the  souls  of  confessors  and  martyrs  in  ancient  days. 
It  has  a  majesty  and  a  dignity  which  can  never  be 
imparted  to  music  snatched  from  martial  airs,  or 
operatic  strains,  or  the  secular  songs  of  the  day, 
which  some  would  like  to  sanctify  with  sacred 
words. 

It  is  most  desirable  that  the  improvement  which 
has  now  commenced  in  our  church  music,  should 
take  the  right  direction.  It  may  be  questioned 
whether  it  is,  in  all  quarters,  taking  that  direction. 
It  is  thought  by  many  that  the  modern  tunes  with 
which  we  are  now  flooded,  are  generally  inferior  to 
the  simple  and  severe  melodies  which  originated 
centuries  ago. 

We  would  now  propose  the  question,  what  is 
necessary,  in  order  to  the  more  rapid  and  general 
improvement  of  sacred  music  amongst  us  ? 

First,  a  deeper  interest  in  the  subject  on  the  part 
of  Christian  ministers  and  people.  Good  church 
music  is  not  of  spontaneous  growth ;  it  comes  by 
cultivation.  It  can  hardly  be  expected  that  the 
members  of  our  choirs  will  subject  themselves  to 
that  constant  and  patient  drill,  without  which  no 
5 


50  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

proficiency  can  be  attained,  unless  they  have  the 
sympathy  and  support  of  our  congregations.  As  a 
general  rule,  they  now  receive  more  of  sharp  criti- 
cism, than  of  encouragement. 

It  is  also  to  be  desired  that  the  refined  and  culti- 
vated youth  of  our  parishes,  if  they  are  gifted  with 
musical  talent,  should  be  willing  to  devote  this  gift 
to  the  service  of  God  in  the  sanctuary.  It  is  a 
strange  idea  to  get  possession  of  a  creature's  mind, 
that  he  is  "  too  respectable"  to  engage  in  publicly 
singing  his  Makers  praise.  And  yet  in  some  of 
our  churches,  this  notion  has  prevailed :  the  young 
woman,  who  spends  the  greater  part  of  her  waking 
hours  in  musical  practice  through  the  week,  has  too 
much  personal  dignity  to  open  her  lips  in  sacred 
song  on  the  Lord's  day  and  in  the  Lord's  temple ! 
This  ignoble  exclusiveness,  we  are  happy  to  see,  is 
gradually  melting  away. 

But  we  need,  not  only  a  greater  interest  in  sacred 
music,  but  a  more  general  conviction  of  the  need 
and  the  possibility  of  progressive  improvement. 
The  highest  idea  of  church  music  is.  with  most  peo- 
ple, that  to  which  they  have  been  accustomed.  There 
is  a  certain  set  of  tunes,  with  which  they  are  famil- 
iar, and  these  they  would  like  to  hear  constantly  re- 
peated. This  feeling  is  a  natural  one,  and  to  be 
respected.  It  is  indeed  no  real  improvement,  when 
the  solid  old  tunes  of  ancient  composers  are  all  set 
aside,  to  make  way  for  the  lighter  and  more  fanciful 
music  of  the  day.     But  it  can  hardly  be  expected 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  51 

that  our  choirs  should  be  content  to  travel  the  same 
round  of  familiar  chants  and  tunes,  month  after 
month  and  year  after  year;  and  every  individual 
should  try  to  remember  that  there  are  other  tastes 
to  be  consulted  beside  his  own. 

The  art  of  sacred  music  is  with  us  now  in  its  in- 
fancy, and  there  are  few  people  who  have  the  slight- 
est conception  of  the  improvement  which  it  might 
receive.  The  popular  taste  is,  in  a  great  measure, 
formed  after  vulgar  models,  and  it  can  be  rectified 
only  by  slow  degrees.  A  higher  style  must,  if  it 
can  be  done  in  no  other  way,  be  forced  upon  the 
community,  and  they  will  gradually  learn  to  appre- 
ciate it. 

Our  parishes  must  also  be  willing  generously  to 
contribute  "  material  aid,"  if  we  would  materially 
advance  the  art  of  sacred  music  ;  there  must  be  a 
sufficient  pecuniary  inducement  held  out  to  persons 
of  musical  taste,  to  induce  them  to  discipline  and 
cultivate  their  powers.  In  former  years,  there  has 
existed  a  strong  prejudice  against  the  practice  of 
music  as  a  profession,  and  one  was  looked  upon  as 
throwing  away  his  life,  if  he  devoted  his  time  ex- 
clusively to  this  science.  With  just  as  much  pro- 
priety, we  might  object  to  the  profession  of  a  sculp- 
ter,  a  painter,  or  to  the  practice  of  any  ornamental 
trade.  We  often  make  an  improper  distinction  be- 
tween the  elegant  and  the  useful,  as  if  the  adorn- 
ments of  life  had  not  their  use.  Music  is  something 
more  than  an  elegant  accomplishment,  it  is  no  friv- 


52  DISCOURSES    O.N     KLLlMOl.-     wi-k. 

olous  pursuit :  it  ought  to  have,  and  if  rightly  stud- 
ied, it  would  have  a  purifying,  elevating,  ennobling 
influence  upon  character.  It  has  a  power,  which  is 
peculiarly  its  own  ;  it  can  rind  its  way  where  noth- 
ing else  can  penetrate  ;  it  can  enkindle  thoughts  and 
feelings,  which  are  impassive  to  every  other  touch  ; 
it  will  outlive  all  other  arts  :  it  is  the  most  profound 
of  sciences,  and  perhaps  the  only  one  which  is  essen- 
tially eternal. 

And  what  is  necessary,  in  order  to  the  advance- 
ment of  music,  on  the  part  of  the  performers  them- 
selves ?  They  must  have  a  deep  and  earnest  en- 
thusiasm in  their  profession.  It  is  not  a  business 
to  be  followed,  as  men  work  at  a  trade.  They 
should  feel  that  their  powers  are  too  noble  and  di- 
vine, to  be  degraded  to  the  mere  purpose  of  amuse- 
ment, and  prostituted  to  the  service  of  licentious- 
ness. They  should  appreciivv  their  responsibility 
to  Him,  who  has  endowed  them  with  this  wonder- 
ful gift.  They  should  consider  it  as  their  mission 
to  rescue  the  grand  art  of  music  from  all  the  ignoble 
purposes  which  it  has  subserved.  And,  especially, 
when  their  gift  is  exercised  in  connection  with  those 
solemn  services  which  are  rendered  directly  to  the 
Almighty,  their  whole  soul  should  respond  to  the 
sacred  sentiments  which  they  utter  with  the  lip. 
They  should  sing,  as  though  they  knew  the  angels 
heard  them.  It  is  as  grievous  an  evil  to  sing  with 
hypocrisy,  as  it  is  to  preach  falsely. 

There  must  be  this  genuine  feeling,  in  order  to  a 


DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC.  53 

genuine  expression.  Why  is  it  that  there  is  so  often 
such  a  strange  incongruity  between  the  nature  of 
the  sentiment  which  is  to  be  rendered,  and  the  mode 
of  expression  ?  It  is  because  the  sentiment  is  nei- 
ther felt  or  understood.  It  cannot  be  understood, 
when  it  is  not  felt,  because  it  is  of  that  nature,  that 
it  must  be  interpreted  by  the  feelings.  Music  ap- 
peals to  the  intuitional,  and  not  to  the  logical  con- 
sciousness. It  goes  straight  to  the  heart,  if  it 
goes  any  where.  We  may  not  know  why  we  are 
moved,  or  what  it  is  that  moves  us  ;  we  only  know 
that  we  are  moved.  And  this  result  comes,  only 
when  the  tone  is  true,  and  not  artificial.  We  may 
admire  a  skillful  performance,  mechanically  execu- 
ted, and  wonder  how  it  can  be  done ;  but  it  does 
not  reach  the  centre  of  being. 

Let  therefore  your  song  of  praise  be  baptized  with 
the  spirit  of  true  religion ;  consecrate  to  God  the 
powers  which  he  has  given  you  ;  and  let  His  glory,, 
not  your  own,  be  the  great  end  of  all  you  do. 

You  will  then  not  only  advance  His  glory,  but 
secure  to  yourselves  a  rich  and  an  eternal  reward. 
You  will  be  able,  when  your  hour  of  departure 
comes,  to  go  down  into  the  dark  river,  chanting  with 
triumphant  exultation,  "  O  grave,  where  is  thy 
victory ! " 

And,  after  the  short  interval  of  unconsciousness, 
during  which  the  soul  extricates  itself  from  the  ma- 
terial body,  you  shall  waken  to  a  new  life,  in  which 
every  sense  will  be  endowed  with  exquisite  acute- 


54  DISCOURSES    ON    RELIGIOUS    MUSIC. 

ness  ;  and  then  there  will  steal  upon  your  ear  that 
music,  which  only  angels  can  make  :  the  silver  notes 
of  heaven  !  It  is  but  the  rudiment  of  melody  that 
we  now  enjoy  :  we  are  still  in  our  infancy  and  can 
only  lisp  imperfect  sounds  as  yet :  it  is  the  alphabet 
of  the  science  that  we  study :  our  earthly  mu- 
sic is  only  the  symbol  of  harmony  :  but  when  the 
time  comes,  that  melody  and  harmony  shall  be  the 
very  law  of  our  being, — when  every  motion  shall  be 
rhythmical,  and  all  hearts  attuned  to  one  key,  and 
all  thoughts  in  concord,  then  we  shall  breathe  in 
music.  Life  will  be  all  an  anthem.  In  the  city 
not  made  with  hands,  the  very  gates  will  be  salva- 
tion, and  the  walls  will  be  praise.  Up  in  the  high 
towers,  soft  chimes  will  ring  from  morning  till 
evening,  and  in  the  green  gardens,  where  the  river 
of  life  sings  gently  as  it  flows,  there  will  be  heard 
the  music  of  the  immortals. 


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